14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Qualifications for High Priesthood

5 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. 3 Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. 4 And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.

A Priest Forever

5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him:

"You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You."

6 As He also says in another place:

"You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek";

7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, 8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. 9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, 10 called by God as High Priest "according to the order of Melchizedek,"

by Bryan J. Whitfield

"Is she qualified? Can he do the job?"

I ask these questions when the president nominates someone for an office or when I consider someone for a position of service in the church.

The author of Hebrews asks a similar question: is Jesus qualified for the office of high priest? His answer is "yes," but demonstrating the reasons for his position is difficult because Jesus is not from the tribe of Levi (7:13-14). His lineage appears to disqualify him. In the lectionary passage this week, the writer begins to respond to this problem and shows that Jesus is qualified to function as our high priest.

The writer examines two qualifications in particular--humility and compassion. The structure of the argument is a concentric ring, as the writer treats compassion and humility in general (5:1-4) and reverses the order to argue for Christ's humility (5:5-6) and compassion (5:7-10).

With respect to humility, the author first notes that high priests do not grasp at this position of honor. Those who arrogantly seize the office disqualify themselves. Aaron and his descendants who followed him as high priest came to their position because God called and appointed them.

Jesus fulfills this qualification as well. He has not presumed to take the office; God selected him. The author quotes two passages of scripture to support this claim. The first reference is to Psalm 2:7, a verse the writer first cited in 1:5. The second quotation is Psalm 110:4: "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek" (5:6). This quotation proves central in the argument.

The author knows Jesus does not fulfill the requirement of physical descent from Levi (7:13-14). How can he then continue to argue that God has appointed him to be high priest? Since any straightforward logic is blocked, the writer uses a chess knight's move to jump over the objection. Christ, he points out, is not a priest like Levi at all. He is a priest like Melchizedek, who belongs to an older (and therefore better) order of priests.

Later the author will examine the relationship of Jesus and Melchizedek in more detail (7:1-28). Here he quickly turns to explore a second qualification, that of compassion or mercy. The high priest must be able to deal mercifully with the ignorant and the errant since he too is beset by human frailty (5:2). Most high priests must also offer sacrifice for their own sins as well as those of others (5:3).

Despite his exalted status as Son, Jesus too is able to sympathize with human frailty and limitation because of what he experienced in "the days of his flesh" (5:7). The analogy between Jesus and the other high priests does not hold in every respect because Jesus is without sin. Nonetheless, his experience of testing encompasses the full range of human experience so that he is able to sympathize with us (4:15).

In particular, the prayers of Jesus illustrate the depth of his identification with us. Just as the high priest offers "gifts and sacrifices for sins" (5:1), so Jesus sacrificially offers "prayers and supplications" (5:7). But Jesus did not offer these prayers in a serene sanctuary isolated from human need and pain. Instead, Jesus prayed to God in the midst of crisis, fervently and passionately, "with loud cries and tears" (5:7).

These prayers may allude to Jesus' experience of prayer in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:40-46), to his prayer from the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34), or to the role of prayer throughout the entirety of his passion. What matters most is that Jesus stands in solidarity with us in our vulnerability and finitude and, like us, cries out to God for help.

Jesus' identification with humanity extends beyond prayer to obedience. His experiences in "the days of his flesh" were not a mere gloss on his heavenly status. Rather his obediential suffering--and here the writer has in mind his paschal suffering and death (2:9, 10; 9:26; 13:12)--becomes formative for his vocation as priest. In his own experience, Jesus learns how to respond to and obey God's call. He does not cling to his prerogatives as Son but becomes obedient.

That obedience qualifies him for his service as priest, for it demonstrates his capacity to sympathize with us in our struggles. Learning obedience, Jesus became "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (5:9). But why should the obedience of Jesus as a human being matter? Why does salvation depend on a high priest who is subject to weakness, who prays in crisis, who learns what the human lot is like? Why does Jesus' service as high priest require his identification with us?

In a column entitled "The Man and the Birds," religion editor Louis Cassels recounted the story of a man who refused to attend a Christmas Eve service with his family because he did not believe in the incarnation. He remained at home, where it began to snow. Minutes later, he heard what he thought was someone throwing snowballs against his window. Going outside to investigate, he found a flock of birds trying to fly through his window as they sought refuge from the storm. He thought they might find shelter in his barn, and he made his way there. He opened the doors and turned on the light, but the birds stayed outside. He created a trail of bread crumbs for them to follow into the barn, but that did not work. He tried to shoo them into the barn, but that effort also proved unsuccessful.

"If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety." At that moment, the church bells began to ring, and the man sank to his knees in the snow. "Now I do understand," he whispered. "Now I see why You had to do it."

About the Author

Bryan J. Whitfield
Assistant Professor of Christianity
Mercer University, Macon, GA

by William Loader

Scripture: Hebrews 5:5-10

Hebrews is one of the most remarkable writings in the New Testament. Although it ends like a letter, it begins with the flourish which we recognise introduces a speech in the ancient world. It is written in some of the most sophisticated Greek in the New Testament. It weaves together the language we know otherwise from educated writers influenced by popular Platonism with older, Christian tradition, to fashion an arguing exhortation, designed to reassure and give confidence to believers of the day.

The reassurance must be understood against what appears to have been uncertainty on a number of fronts. One was simply the matter of human vulnerability in a world outside their control. That included a world of spirit and angels, whose good will might not be assured. It also included a world which could be hostile in human terms. The hearers had known victimisation by local authorities and appear to be facing potential of persecution on a grander scale. Closer to the soul, they appear also to have been rattled by a resurgent Judaism, probably in the 80s, which by its success called the legitimacy of the fledgling Christian movement into question. Was not the movement just another sect which had lost its way, carried off by enthusiasts who had betrayed Israel's heritage and which should now be left to peter out or become an institutionalised irrelevance like most other movements beyond their first and second generation?

The speech begins with a strong reassertion of God's action in Christ, culminating in the strong affirmation that this Jesus had been exalted high above all the cosmic powers, the angels (1:3-14; 2:1-9). Behind the rhetorical flourish is a defiant assertion that Christ and what he stood for and was, is 'at God's right hand', is what accompanies God. It is like saying today, in the face of the world's madnesses and conniving, that we believe God has the Jesus-shape, the form of love, and that this is stronger than all else! What can one do but trust that this is so - and live!

The author then turns to the plight of the hearers. They are not just facing fear about global powers; they are on the verge of being abused, such that they will have great difficulty holding to their convictions. The combination of such pressure and the undermining effect of a successful Judaism would lead some to abandon their faith altogether They would slink back into paganism or, as some would hold, would slip quietly back into what seemed a more recognised and respected religion: Judaism. The author takes the hearers back to the life of Jesus. He was similarly pressured and stuck it out.

Chapters 2 - 7 of Hebrews operate on two fronts: comfort and encouragement based on Christ's own faithfulness in suffering and arguments to undermine the continuing validity of Judaism. The latter become quite elaborate and continue on as far as Hebrews 10. The main ploy is to portray the Old Testament and its rituals as earthly copies of the far greater realities which belong to the heavenly world. The biblical temple merely reflects the true heavenly temple. So the old is just a shadow of what really matters. It had its legitimacy as something ordained by God, but that had to do with its other function: to foreshadow. Its old sacrifices foreshadowed a great new sacrifice to end all others. Its priests foreshadowed a single great priest to come. This was all a way of affirming, on the one hand, that the old was God-given, and, on the other hand, arguing that it could now be dispensed with. John's gospel argues very similarly, although in quite different language.

Our passage picks up one of the arguments in mid-stream. The old high priesthood had some value: it used human beings who therefore had the capacity to be sensitive and sympathetic to those they represented. They were not self-appointed despots. In reality some of them were, but the author's is a bookish argument. He is arguing about the claim that the Old Testament order should still be valid, not about historical realities. This is why, like the rabbis centuries later, he can speak of the temple as though it is a present reality, even though by the time of Hebrews it lay in ruins.

As the high priests were not self-appointed, so Jesus was appointed high priest by God. To argue this, the author refers to Jesus' appointment as 'Son of God' (5:5). That was the note with which the speech began (1:5). Christians came to understand Jesus' resurrection as an act whereby God pulled Jesus up from the dead and anointed him Messiah, crowned him king, and gave him the the ancient name of Israel's kings: the adopted Son of God (as in Psalm 2:7), and seated him at his right hand (Psalm 110:1). The author knew other ways of speaking of Jesus as Son of God, which had their roots in ancient speculation about wisdom as God's child from the beginning of time, but, like Paul in Romans 1:3-5, he is quite happy to use both ways. Here the older tradition shines through, as it did especially in 1:3b-9.

The reference to Jesus' appointment as Son is incidental to the argument. The main statement is that God also appointed Jesus priest. Just a few verses after the much used Psalm 110:1 which spoke of enthronement at God's right hand we find an allusion to that more ancient king of Salem, who was also a priest: Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4). This helps the author declare that Easter also established Jesus as the priest before God. In Hebrews 7 we find the complicated argument that this Melchizedek was likely to have been of a heavenly order of being and priesthood (as some had come to speculate in Judaism at the time). This made it possible to interpret Jesus' appointment 'according the order of Melchizedek' as indicating a heavenly priesthood based on a different level of being.

Here, however, the focus is on what had been noted earlier in the chapter: high priests belonged to the people and shared their common humanity (5:1-4). That is what the dramatic verses 5:7-8 now portray (a similar point is made in 4:14-16). Translations vary. I think the clearest way to is read these verses as describing a Jesus who was desperate, faced real suffering, cried out for help, still had to go through all the pain, despite his special status, and die, but then was saved up out of the realm of the dead because he had demonstrated the godly fear and faithfulness which kept him from giving up and betraying his mission. So it was not a super successful Jesus, but a Jesus who was broken by affliction whom God 'perfected' or brought to completion, a technical term meaning something like: brought to the end and fulfilment of his life journey. It is not about Jesus developing moral perfection, as if the suffering knocked the bad out of him! What he learned in the process was not how to be 'good' or 'perfect', but what it is like to face such human suffering and the pressure to give up. In other words he learned to face pressure comparable to what the hearers were about to face!

The author will go to expand this theme even further in 7:25 by arguing that this experience now enables Christ the priest to pray for those facing similar situations - to help them get through (not to be confused with the image of the heavenly advocate praying for forgiveness of sins which we find in 1 John 2:1). This is first century theology finding its way of asserting that right next to God there is a voice urging compassion for those hard up against it. Later generations will develop trinitarian doctrine and find ways of asserting this primitive idea in more integrated ways, speaking of solidarity as something which God does not need to be told about but which is central to God's being.

Solidarity, humaneness, compassion - and much fear inspire the author's rhetoric. Some of his arguments are less appealing. In 6:4-8 (and elsewhere) he expounds the threat that those who fail will be lost forever! No way back! A closed door. Later generations would find their way through such anguish and anger to a compassion which never shut the door. Our author is writing amid impending hopelessness and marshalling his wit and rhetoric to encourage. He leaves us a theology where the story of Jesus becomes a paradigm for life in adversity and we see a Jesus representing the human condition to God. In a mythological way we might say he takes solidarity into the heart of God, the holiest place - only to leave us now affirming that this was not only true then, but is true always. Always solidarity in the heart of God. As some would say: always the Son in the bosom of the Father, always the Spirit who gives life and hope.

About The Author:

by Alan Brehm

Scripture: Heb. 5:1-10; Mk. 10:35-45

I think it's fair to say that one of the major factors shaping our culture is advertising. What you may not realize is that it's actually not a recent development. Formal advertising began with the advent of printing. The first ads appeared in European newspapers in the 17th and 18th Centuries. "Advertising" as a separate business really came into its own in the 1920's. Ever since that day, and certainly since the radio and television era began, "marketing" has been a primary element in sales, and to some extent in business. With the "decline" of many churches, I guess it should be no surprise that we have turned to marketing to rescue us. But the problem with marketing is that you have to promise more than you can deliver in order to get anybody to listen. Think about it - does "new and improved" really mean anything anymore? How much attention do you really pay to commercials? Most people recognize that they're a "necessary evil," but if you have a DVR, you simply fast-forward through them. In other words, we have learned to ignore marketing, because it usually means nothing.

Some years ago, major magazines began to study the phenomenon they called "marketing Jesus." It seems to me putting it that way sets in stark relief the incompatibility between marketing and the Christian faith. Think of it - do we really believe we have to "market" Jesus? How about marketing "grace"? Or let's get downright ludicrous: how would you go about "selling" eternal life? It seems to me the questions answer themselves. And yet, the church marketing business goes on cranking out ads for everything from "our handsome young pastor and his beautiful wife" to "we have more services to offer you and your children" to "we have the biggest cross in town"! I guess I would have to say that if we really think we have to "sell" salvation, we've lost the essence of what it means!

I think our discussion of the incarnation might help us here as well. You see, in the New Testament the idea that Jesus incarnated God not only means that Jesus really and truly shows us what God is like. And it not only means Jesus shows us that God really and truly understands what it is like to be fully human. The incarnation also means that by fully entering our reality and fully sharing our humanity, God has done all that needs to be done to really and truly redeem us all. Jesus said it this way: "Son of Man came not to serve but to be served and to give his life as a ransom for the many" (Mk 10:45). "A ransom for the many" is an allusion to Isaiah 53, and there "the many" basically means "everybody." The book of Hebrews puts it this way: through what he suffered, Jesus has become the source of "eternal salvation." (Heb. 5:9)

The incarnation is not only about who God is, it's also about what God is doing - God is in the process of restoring all things. Throughout the ages many have raised questions about the incarnation. One question they've asked is, "Why go to all this trouble?" Some might wonder why God doesn't just give us the information and let us pull ourselves out of our own mess. And the answer is that a restoration of this magnitude is something only God can accomplish.[2] We cannot do it for ourselves. Others have asked why would go to all the trouble of fully entering and sharing our experience. Why not just "say the word" and make everything right again? Because that's the only way to actually restore our experience of human life - all of it.[3] It can only be restored from within - by God entering it and pouring out the love that can change us all. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus did just that - he went into the abyss of human suffering in order to redeem all of us who have been trapped there.[4][5] There is no depth of suffering in human experience that Jesus did not reach. And the profound love he poured out for us all at the cross changes everything!

But there is another dimension to this. Jesus also restores all human life by pouring new life into it. Through his life and death - and the resurrection that follows it, Jesus also effectively "plants" the "new life" of the resurrection in this world.[6] In one of his parables, Jesus compared the new life of the Kingdom implanted in this world to mustard seed. If you've ever worked any property, you know that mustard is a weed that people try to get rid of, but it spreads like crazy. It's ineradicable. That's the kind of new life Jesus has implanted in this world. It spreads like Kudzu! And this new life is not merely a return to its original state, but rather it is a transformation of life that points to a completely new creation.[7] The new life Jesus "implanted" in this world changes everything.

Throughout the ages, scholars have debated these matters, while people from all walks of life have doubted them. When the book of Hebrews talks about sacrifices and cleansing, and scholars talk about propitiation and expiation, I don't think that really does much for most of us these days. [8] What we need is the strength to change our lives that comes from being truly loved. And what we need is the courage that comes from having faith and hope that there is something more to this life than just the endless return of "the way things are." In Jesus, God acts to give us those gifts. In Jesus, God pours out a love that is able to change even the most stubborn sinner! In Jesus, God injects life into this world that can create in even the most confirmed skeptic the faith and the hope that there truly is something to live for. Faith, hope and love - St. Paul says that they abide when everything else fails. Maybe that's one reason why the Scripture says Jesus can "save forever" those who trust in him.

References

[2] Jürgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today's World, 41: "In the Bible it is always God himself who ‘carries' the people's sins, and in this way brings about reconciliation. … God himself is the atoning God." Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 178.

[3] Moltmann, The Crucified God, 185, says that it was "Through his suffering and death" that "the risen Christ brings righteousness and life to the unrighteous and the dying."

[4] cf. Study Catechism, q. 45; cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 91.

[5] Cf. Moltmann, Church in the Power, 95 Moltmann, Crucified God, 246, 277.

[6] Moltmann, Crucified God, 180-86, argues that "the cross of the risen Christ points not to an expiatory sacrifice but to the anticipation of the coming reign of God and indeed in some respects "the incarnation of the coming God in our flesh." Cf. also pp. 168-71, 175-76.

[7] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 188-89; cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV. 1:13, 110.